Turn your podcast network into an audience growth machine with our step by step guide
Your podcast might be part of a huge network. It might sit alongside similar podcasts by the same production company, or fall under a network brand, or even be part of an ad network. All of these scenarios mean you have some massive potential for audience growth that you might be missing out on.
And if you are reading this thinking, ‘hmm that doesn’t sound like me or my show’ or ‘what even is a network?’ We have some secrets to share for you, too. If you are a single creator, we urge you to find friends and create a virtual network. This simply means forming a coalition between other podcasts in the same genre or with similar audiences that you can then use as another route to market your podcast. This is hugely beneficial for everyone involved – you and your podcast friends – so don’t miss out and follow our guide anyway to get the most out of it, like strategic cross-promotion and a subscriber engine.
So where do you start?
Step 1 is connecting all of your shows. Cross-promotion, or Podcast Outreach as we call it, is really powerful. What you need to do is quite literally think of your network as a network. Between all of your shows, there should be powerlines that connect the listeners. Here’s a good starting point:
- Sit down and write out a list of all shows in your network (whether virtual friends network or an organisation’s network)
- Identify all the overlaps and cross-overs (our tip: think about content – where genres cross-over, but also shows that might have similar audiences or demographics)
- Assign ad and promo slots – where do you feel comfortable inserting promotion? Pre-roll, mid-roll, end-roll? Ads? Presenter reads? Website, newsletters, socials? Think of the whole array of spots where audiences might stumble upon other recommendations.
These three points will help you put together a marketing grid. The marketing grid will be the framework that allows all of your shows to get exposure to new audiences and it will help you to convert dedicated listeners to new fans of similar podcasts.
How do you execute the grid?
Step 2 will be following your set out grid and plugging the ads and host reads into your shows. This might require a little bit of a production process review to make sure you are all aligned on how and where the ads are going. This network-wide cross-promo strategy will also mean you are not selling every ad slot to external sponsors, which is something you should also consider in terms of your revenue and overall targets. We suggest dedicating between 10%-20% of all of your inventory to cross-promo anyway – the healthier all of your podcasts are in your network, the better!
Remember to also mix it up when it comes to cross-promo. You can do a variety of trailer swaps, dynamic ads and host-reads. Plus, don’t neglect any cross-over guesting opportunities, too.
What else can you do?
Step 3 is about considering one more thing… full episodes on feeds! This is something we recommend for genre-fit podcasts only, as you wouldn’t want to alienate your dedicated listeners with a podcast that simply doesn’t fit their interests. If you are putting out a whole episode on the feed of another show, it’s always nice for the regular host of the feed’s podcast to introduce the episode and explain why the audience might find it interesting. Crucially, don’t forget to add a clear CTA (Call To Action) as to where the listener might find the new podcast they just sampled.
And how do you know it works?
Finally, once you have executed all of the above – you will want to see some results. To track if this network cross-promo works, you can of course use conversion data on any dynamic ads, trailer swaps and host reads. You can also look at listener movement in general and track subscriber numbers. To get another step further, look at completion rates of your podcast eps and engagement spikes – these are key to figuring out what your audience really reacts to.
Still struggling to understand how you can grow your network?
Don’t worry, we get it. There are a lot of steps and there are plenty of other things that you need to worry about when it comes to production. That’s precisely why we exist in the first place – to think about marketing your shows so you don’t have to! Reach out to us about your network or your podcast’s cross-promo strategy to get some advice or to help you execute the whole thing.